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Alventis - Universal Information Manager for Non-Programmers

Alventis is a breakthrough in information management.

A new kind of database application, Alventis bridges the gap between a personal information manager (PIM) and an industrial-strength database management system (DBMS). It is the first application in the industry to cover the full spectrum of data management needs, ranging from those of individual computer users - to those of the small or medium enterprise, while not requiring the database designer to have any programming or development expertise.

Alventis starts by offering the user a variety of tables and data-entry forms that are usable "out-of-the-box". This alone would constitute a fairly competent PIM, but Alventis goes far beyond that.
All tables and forms are fully user-customizable. A user can make changes to the existing forms and tables, as well as create new ones from scratch using a highly-efficient integrated development environment (IDE) called Alventis Designer. This standalone development application uses a novel approach to designing tables, fields, and forms (which does not rely on property sheets, coding, or macros) to accomplish essentially the same application development tasks as such well-known environments as Microsoft Access, FileMaker, Alpha Five, or Oracle. Alventis achieves much of the same result with absolutely no programming required.
The user starts by specifying the fields to be included in a table. This is performed by simply filling out a spreadsheet-like list. Once this is done, the form is created or modified with drag-and-drop ease. Advanced formatting and sophisticated layout control is afforded by tools that work very much like their counterparts found in many modern word-processors. As a result, even relational database solutions can be implemented in mere minutes, all without writing a single line of code.

Search is another unique aspect of Alventis. Searches can be performed on as many data tables as desired, regardless of their structure. The tables themselves may belong to different databases, which in turn may reside on different servers. Alventis is capable of working concurrently with local data, as well as an unlimited number of data sources via shared or peer-to-peer access, and an equally unlimited number of Alventis servers, accessible in true client/server mode. The results of a search are presented in a cumulative list, even though the searched tables may have heterogeneous structures. A user can work simultaneously with as many search result lists as needed, each list being based on its own set of tables, databases, and servers.

A number of other important features deserve at least a brief mention:

Banded reports can be created on-the-fly with unprecedented ease since report layout and formatting operations are identical to those used in common word-processing.

Alventis supports rich text Memo fields, so each table can, in effect, contain one or more modern word-processors, which afford the user with the tools to produce documents with complex layout and formatting, such as nested tables, embedded graphics, bulleted and numbered outline lists, and so on.

A sophisticated multi-user security model based on hierarchical group access privileges allows for fine-grained control over user's rights.